No country in Europe is so much in its infancy as regards all conveniences for locomotion.

It is true that horses, carriages, boats, &c.

can be had at every station, and the law has fixed the price of these commodities; but every thing is in the hands of the peasants and the publicans, and they are so skilled in tormenting the traveller by their intentional slowness, that he is compelled to pay the two-fold tax, in order to proceed a little more quickly.

The stations are short, being rarely above five or six miles, and one is therefore constantly changing horses.

Arrived at a station, it either happens that there is really no horse to be had, or that this is an ostensible excuse.